The Way I Loved You
by Apalapucian
Summary: "His name was Terrence Hunter, muggle-born and all kinds of perfect, but Lily couldn't help but note the lack of callouses on his fingers, the way his brown curls crowned his kind face a little too immaculately, the way his eyes were of the wrong hue…how there wasn't a pair of spectacles for her to remove before he leaned in to kiss her." Three-shot. JPLE.
1. One

**Disclaimer:** Besides Jeanne and Terrence, I don't own any of the characters you'd recognize. I don't own Taylor Swift's "The Way I Loved You" either, which sort of inspired this whole thing in the first place.

* * *

His name was Terrence Hunter, muggle-born and charming, and he had a wide smile and really nice cheekbones.

They were most prominent when he smiled down at her, most noticeable when the corners of his eyes crinkled, most appreciable when his hands, soft and gentle but rather cold, rested on either side of her face, his thumb drawing slow circles on her slowly flushing cheeks...and those three blasted words tumbling carelessly out of his mouth. It swept her off her feet, but not quite in the way she fancied.

She couldn't help but compare the way Terrence said "Lily"—reverent and barely audible—to the way _he_ said "Evans"—frustrated and loud and confident and familiar...

Dorcas Meadowes said no one could possibly be as genuinely great as Terrence Hunter. Sirius Black concluded that he was a git, a right old berk just like the rest of them, and that he was just awfully good at hiding it. Peter Pettigrew readily and without further question agreed with Sirius. Mary Macdonald wasn't delighted about the whole thing either, but she was decent enough to admit that Terrence was excellent as a person, just not as a boyfriend—particularly Lily's. Remus Lupin said he didn't like him, or the idea of them together, but—

"I guess he's necessary."

"Necessary?"

"Yeah."

"For what?"

"You'll see."

And she had indeed yet to see. Or has she already?

As it happens, though, Lily had no idea what James Potter thought of him.

His name was Terrence Hunter, muggle-born and all kinds of perfect, but Lily couldn't help but note the lack of callouses on his fingers, the way his brown curls crowned his kind face a little too immaculately, the way his eyes were of the wrong hue...how there wasn't a pair of spectacles for her to remove before he leaned in to kiss her.

His lips were chapped.

James's had been, too, but Lily had been too busy focusing on willing herself not to combust to notice then.

And when Terrence finally pulled away for air, his expectant look made her feel guilty, but a tide of realization washed over her and rendered her speechless. His lips left hers and the waves subsided, but she knew then that only one name remained etched on the shores of her consciousness.

In fact, she thought with a sudden surge of clarity, there had never been anyone else—it was just that one name all this time.

* * *

James Potter, although it seems like it, is not having a pleasant night.

He looks like he's having such an engaging conversation with fifth year Jeanne Marchbanks in one corner of the room, yes. But if looked closely—and Remus Lupin certainly did—one will notice how James keeps shifting his weight from one foot to another too many a time in a minute. One would note, as Remus has, how he keeps fiddling with his tie and chewing on the inside of his lower lip, how his eyes keep wandering to the common room entrance. He, like everyone else, has noticed the absence of a certain redhead, unwillingly waiting for her to arrive. He is distracted, so much so that even the otherwise clueless bystanders notice, and the few who are dauntless enough to gawk at him—no doubt assuming that he has something to do with why she's missing—receive hearty glares from the Quidditch Captain himself. He's agitated and not in a particularly good mood, that much is certain. Oddly enough (or not really), Jeanne Marchbanks is either apathetic or oblivious to this fact.

Across the room, Remus downs the remaining contents of his cup and ignores this, knowing all too well that it would be pointless to talk to him about it. He instead rushes over to help Peter and Mary restrain Sirius—who, in all his shaggy-haired glory, has long crossed the line to firewhiskey-induced insanity—from doing a cartwheel atop the drinks table.

James is getting annoyed. He's supposed to be having fun. He's supposed to be getting pissed drunk like Sirius. He's supposed to be enjoying his present—and, in all fairness and under other circumstances perhaps: _excellent_—company. But he can't, because damn him for being worried and bothered and distracted and _annoyed_, damn Lily fucking Evans and her glaring absence, damn the irresistible, nagging thought of her in the back of his mind. He can't stop the glances he throws at the portrait hole, subtly watching over Jeanne's shoulder and willing Lily to come in through the door. He feels disappointed when someone else arrives, inwardly cringing every time his head snaps up when he thinks he's heard her voice.

"...do you think she'll make it?"

James abruptly turns to Jeanne, her question shooting down his train of thought. "Sorry?"

"I said do you think she'll make it?"

He frowns. "Who cares? I don't really give a damn if she shows up or not, she's probably drowning in a pile of homework due next month or something...hang on, who?"

The fifth year sighs and manages a weak smile of abashed understanding. "Donnalyn Summerwest. Puddlemere United's Chaser? She got—"

"—she got hit pretty bad with a bludger on their last match against the Tornadoes, yeah," James finishes for her.

He looks down at Jeanne curiously, his hazel eyes piercing her blue ones through his glasses. The girl blushes, his hard stare making her look down and fiddle with her tie. James, in his defense, is not even intentionally making her uncomfortable. Truthfully, he can't even _see_ Jeanne at the moment. He is just reminded of why he picked Jeanne to begin with, out of the throng of witches who would've given anything to talk to him tonight…

Jeanne Marchbanks is the perfect girl for James. They're compatible. She's not only pretty and smart, but she's also into Quidditch just as much as he is. She's fun to talk to, she's fit, she's not strongly opposed to things like blowing up Filch's closet for fun, and James is fairly certain that she'd be a fantastic snogger should he decide to put that theory to test here and now.

She's perfect...except no, she isn't. It should have been right, should have all _felt_ right, but James feels like anything but being here with her. She's Jeanne Marchbanks, and she and he are compatible—she could have been, she _should_ have been, except they're...but James is...Jeanne just isn't...

Jeanne just isn't _her_.


	2. Two

She trusted Severus Snape.

Just as, at least she assumed, Terrence Hunter trusted her.

Lily honestly believed the boy from Spinner's End could be pulled back from the seemingly endless mess of his own doing, just as Terrence honestly believed she could be redeemed from the web of conflicting feelings concerning her ex-best friend and her ex-boyfriend.

She thought she could still do something to bring Sev back, to turn things around, to maybe make him see sense. Terrence thought he could still do something to make life easier for Lily, to turn things back to normal for her, to maybe give her a new definition of love and life and friendship.

She _trusted_ Severus Snape.

Terrence said he loved her.

She may have loved someone else.

She may _still..._

But James was gone.

Good Godric.

The thoughts keep playing over and over in her head as she stares up the scarlet bed canopy of her four-poster. Try as she can to blink back the tears, the blasted traitors spill down her cheeks and onto her pillow anyway. She can hear the muffled bass of music from downstairs. She imagines her fellow housemates getting inebriated, and she sighs. Another victory for Gryffindor. She saw Jeanne Marchbanks come up to James after the match earlier, twiddling her fingers and looking up at him with that familiar look of sheer awe. Lily saw Jeanne's eyes light up when he smiled—the way her own must have lit up all those times he grinned that stupid smirk at her, all those times he randomly reached for her hand, all those times she got to taste a hint of butterbeer off his lips...

So she was wrong. Never more wrong on so many things simultaneously ever in her life. Severus Snape couldn't be saved, and Terrence Hunter couldn't be...the one.

And, possibly the most wrong of all, she's lost James.

Sev was no longer that kid from Spinner's End. He was no longer Severus Snape, her best mate, the dreamer from the neighborhood who would lie beside her in the summer-kissed grass, staring at the night skies and talking about magic and wonder and Hogwarts. That genuine, innocent fascination she so often discerned in his eyes was now replaced with a bitter, dangerous frenzy, having gotten too lost in the grid of Slytherin's power plays. Everything he does is out of his desire to impress Lily. His determination to beat James, to prove a point, or to acquire her like she's some sort of prize. She wanted her best friend back, but he wanted something new, something more, something Lily couldn't give him.

Maybe he did have something true somewhere beneath all that obsession over the Dark Arts. Maybe he cared.

Maybe he did love her.

But she doesn't think they tread the same definition of it, Lily and Sev, and it's a shame he meant so much to her—_means_ so much to her—because it makes everything so unfairly complicated.

He can't be saved.

She should have long realized that. She shouldn't have waited for the time she would accidentally overhear him talking with his _mates, _those god-awful Slytherins who plotted the worst things and revelled in You-Know-Who's steadily rising power, and finally knowing for herself everything she didn't want to—but she very much _needed _to—hear. She shouldn't have waited for Severus to admit it himself, to tell her he was all doing it for her—all the time and effort he was investing in _them_. How yes, he honestly wouldn't have told Dumbledore about the planned winter attack if she hadn't gotten herself caught in all of it. Also, how he purposely made sure she recognized his writing on the letter despite the use of Potter's name, because it was the only way the hoax would work. Did she know, incidentally, how hard it had been for him to write Potter's name on it, by the way? It broke his heart. It really did, Lily—did she know? Did she know how much he had to go through to make them trust him, to make him part of all of it, in spite of his friendship with her? But he couldn't just give her up! Because she was his best mate, because she means so much, because he…did she know he was just trying to save her from her imminent death, because that's what's going to happen should she continue to openly associate herself with Dumbledore and his minions—that's what's going to happen, Lily! Did she know that she would _die_, being who she was—being _what _she was—and the only way to stay alive was to give her allegiance to the other side? Did she know that if she had just only said yes that night, if she had just taken the chance at redemption he had worked so hard to give her, and if James bloody Potter hadn't arrived in his undying, moronic urge to play hero every goddamn time, everything would have turned out fine? He wouldn't have had to hurt Potter, or _her, _or anyone?

He was only saving her—did she know?!

Well, no.

But she bloody well _should_ have. Because then she would have slapped him earlier, she wouldn't have recklessly gone off to save his pompous, delusional arse, she wouldn't have had that argument with James.

But no. She refused to believe her best mate was _that _far gone, and she let it all come to that, and even after everything, she let it all come to _this._

Because it was too late to turn back then, James had set her free, she had inadvertently ruined everything.

And then Terrence Hunter happened. She _let _Terrence Hunter happen.

Severus Snape was an honest mistake. Terrence Hunter wasn't.

She swings her feet off the bed and gets to her feet, ignoring the dizziness brought about by her sudden movement. She idly brushes her fingers through her hair in a half-hearted attempt to look the least bit less than the utter mess she is. She, however, did not stop to look at the mirror and confirm that she looks as horrible as she feels.

And then it all plays again: Terrence Hunter was in love with her. She trusted Severus Snape. James Potter loved her, and she might have...but she let him—she let him let her go.

She wishes she hadn't let everything get this far, because that was what she did. She wishes she hadn't been so naïve as to keep believing she was capable of saving everyone from themselves, because it always ends up with her who needs saving, left alone with her stubborn, pervasive assertion that she can always, _always _fix things. She wishes she wasn't too damn proud to admit that James was right, that she misses him—oh Merlin does she miss him—and that she doesn't like it when he smiled back at Jeanne Marchbanks and when he laughed around Jeanne Marchbanks and that he can bloody be kissing Jeanne Marchbanks right this moment. No, she doesn't like it at all.

She grits her teeth and takes a deep breath, her hand gripping the dormitory doorknob so hard her knuckles go white from exertion.

The music from downstairs ring more resolutely in her ears as she pushes the door open, and even the hallway smells of alcohol and foil streamers and smoke and of Gryffindor having the time of their lives if only for until the night would last. She tries to numb everything out with the dull sound of her footsteps, but it's James and Severus and Terrence and her sodding _unbelievable_ stupidity, and it's so hard to keep everything in a bubble and shut it down.

Lily Evans concludes she really, really, _badly_ needs a drink.

* * *

That night vaguely reeked of alcohol, too, James remembers.

There had been an anonymous note on Lily's desk, with a time and place and James' name, but without his distinctly messy scrawl. Lily of all people should have recognized the difference—she knew James' penmanship by heart—but that hadn't stopped her from going to the said rendezvous, from bailing on the very person whose name had been errantly used. That didn't stop her from risking her life in a foolish attempt to rescue _him_—that blasted Slytherin prick who had the nerve to forge his name—because let's face it, that's what it had all been about.

Severus fucking Snape...

She even said so herself. And although the honesty was very much appreciated, thanks, it was safe to say that it was what hurt James the most.

"I'm sorry."

He merely stared down at her and noted what a mess they were. Strands of hair were falling off her ponytail and she had a small cut on her jaw. His own lip was bleeding, a bruise was slowly forming just beneath his right eye. He tried not to show it, tried not to show he's upset, but although his face almost succeeded on this, his hands curled into tight fists on their own.

He quietly reached up and tapped his specs, muttering a spell to fix the cracked glass. She might as well not have apologized.

"James..."

"Just tell me one thing," said James, his voice low. "Did you know it was him? When you got the note, did you know...did you have any idea who sent it?"

She was quiet. Even before the soft, crushing "yes" escaped her lips, he already knew the answer.

This time he wasn't sure if the pain and anger that shot through him was still concealed—if it had ever even been concealed—because he felt like punching a wall, or blasting a corridor, or getting out of there and grabbing his Nimbus and flying up, up in the sky where the roar of the wind and the rush of adrenaline was louder than the call of her fiery red hair and her startlingly green eyes. "And you still went ahead and..." He looked away and sighed, licking his lips to keep intact what flimsy composure he still possessed. "_Why_, Lily?"

She stepped forward, her eyes glistening. While it was killing him to see her this way, he still detected an air of defiance about her. "Because I thought he might be in trouble," she reasoned. "I thought he might need my help. I thought...I thought maybe I could still bring him back."

"So after everything, just like that, you still believe he deserves redemption?"

She looked imploringly at him, but didn't answer.

"I don't get it." He shook his head in incredulity and genuine puzzlement. "I thought it's been clear to you—he's chosen his way. I thought we're past all this."

"We _are_," she hastily said. "But I can't—he's not just some random person I can let go entirely, James. He was my best mate, and I…"

"Operative word being _was_," he retorted, but was only answered with silence again. "You're going to make a fool out of yourself if you keep trusting people like that, Evans. You're going to get yourself hurt every time."

"I was just trying to—"

"He can't be saved," he snapped, grabbing her shoulders and peering into her eyes. "You have to see that, Lily, alright? Only _he_ can decide for himself whether or not he still likes to be saved, and I'm pretty sure he's made his decision a long time ago."

She didn't meet his gaze, her eyes fixated at his tie. "Last winter..." she muttered, "last winter, when he told Dumbledore of the Slytherins' plan, he saved us then..." She looked up at James, clearly willing him to understand. But her evident denial did nothing but further rip James' heart and resolve into pieces. "I just thought there might be something left of him I can salvage."

"He saved _you_," James pointed out. "Just you. You think he'd give a rat's arse if you weren't in Gryffindor? You think he would have thought twice if you hadn't been part of those mutts' plan?"

"Yes, well..."

"You can't expect it to always be like last winter, Lily," he told her, frustrated. "He's changed. Everything's changed. He lured you out today, he did it for them, and Merlin knows what I would have done if anything happened to you—"

"Alright, alright," she conceded. "Okay. I...yeah. I know that now."

"Do you, really?" He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. He looked at her for a moment, taking in her dishevelled appearance and the events of the night, and the thought—that torturous, gripping fear—of what would have happened if he hadn't arrived on time washed over him. "I almost lost you tonight."

She swallowed and blinked twice, recognizing the walls brought down and his sincere fear of losing her. She put a reassuring hand on his cheek and, in spite of everything, he couldn't help but unconsciously lean into it, her fingers soft and warm against his skin. "But you didn't," she assured him. "I'm here. You still have me."

"That's the thing," he said. "I can't...you're not...forget it."

"What?"

And then James suddenly couldn't help it anymore. Until now he's uncertain if he ought to have just stayed quiet then. Nevertheless, what's done is done, and what happened was that his hand reached up to close around hers and dragged it down. And then—

"It doesn't feel like that. I don't feel like I have you." He paused. He knew he should let it go, but he had already started, and he just had to let it out. "I know that sounds selfish, Lily, and I'm sorry. But I've waited so long, too long, and I can't—it's driving me absolutely mad. I don't want you to feel like I don't trust you, but I can't hang around you and constantly feel like this. I feel like I've been waiting my whole life for you, and now that you're here, I just—I feel like I'm still waiting, like I'm going to lose you any time, and it's…it's _terrifying_. It drives me crazy. I don't think that's how it's supposed to be. I don't think that's how any of us are supposed to feel." He suddenly felt tired, so tired, but he knew it wasn't brought about by the recent duelling with Malfoy and Snape and their imbecilic cronies. It was an exhaustion that ran and wounded him deeper. And when he next spoke, the weakness showed; his head hung and his shoulders sagged, and he had to close his eyes briefly and take a deep breath to drag his remaining strength back up. "I'm willing to give you everything, you know that? And I feel like I have. I'm all drained, Evans. I'm just—I'm all yours. You have all of me. I don't know what to do with this anymore...what else do you want from me?"

She was positively in tears now. "I'm sorry," she struggled to get out. "I—I really, _really_ am. I wasn't—"

"Maybe I've been wrong about you." _No._ "Maybe I've been wrong about you all along." _No_. _No, no—fuck it, Potter. You don't mean that._

She was stunned into silence. Her fingers, on the way to rest on his arm, trembled and hovered in mid-air. "What?" she whispered, her hand dropping weakly to her side.

"Maybe you're not yet—" _Stop. _"Maybe we're both wrong about us." _Just stop._

"It doesn't feel wrong!"

"Doesn't it?" _Well, doesn't it?!_

"What are you trying to say?" she asked. "What do you even mean...? I thought you—"

"I do," he cut her off. Oh and _Merlin_, he really did. "I _do._"

He closed the remaining distance between them and pressed his lips against her temple. The smell of her hair and the way her fingers found and gripped his tightly were almost too much to bear, and he closed his eyes tight in a feeble attempt to block it out. He felt like something inside of him was detaching itself and falling down, down...deep down where it was dark and empty and dank, where there was no Lily to hold and no Lily to annoy and no Lily to be with, and he felt like all of him was going to give in. "I do love you, Evans." He fucking felt like _dying_. "But—but I think you need to figure all this out first."

He felt her arms go around his waist, he felt her lean in and pull him close, he felt her tears soak his insignificantly torn shirt. And good fucking Godric he wanted to hold her back so bad, but he felt like he was going to finally lose it if he did. "I don't need to, really," she insisted, her voice broken. "I do feel the same way, and I'm sorry...I'm so, _so_ sorry, James..."

Hearing his name said like that, all cracked and down and guilty and muffled, he couldn't resist looking down and taking her face in his hands.

He kissed her. He kissed her with all that was left of him, with all that was and is and still could have been, and it felt like stealing forever and forever getting stolen. It felt wonderful and miraculous, but it broke his heart—it broke both their hearts.

So he pulled away and detached her from him as gently as he could, shaking his head and smiling sadly. "Yellow butterflies in a glass jar, Lily," said James, and he knew then that he _was _dead, all of the universe was, because there was no way anyone could feel like this and still be alive. "It's time you set them free."

* * *

The sight that greeted her is as chaotic as she has imagined.

By this time only the Gryffindor upperclassmen have stayed behind, more than three-quarters shamelessly inebriated, or making out in some corner, or expressing their sentiments in atrociously deafening volumes, or—as with the case of Sirius Black—trying to knock all the tumblers and bottles off the drinks table by cartwheeling on top of it. Stuck at the foot of the stairs, she watches as Mary, Peter and Remus try to stop him, indomitably avoiding the stares of the few who has noticed her untimely arrival. But then Mary catches her eye, and the petite Gryffindor brunette abandons her task of hauling Sirius by his collar to stand upright and properly look at Lily, her face an odd mixture of concern and greeting and inquiry. Lily tries to smile at her. She doesn't know if she succeeds.

She walks over to them, keeping her eyes trained on the general direction of that table, on Mary and Mary _alone_, and when she gets there she grabs a glass full of amber liquid, the suspicious fizzing not fazing her at the slightest.

"Hey," Mary mumbles, and even Sirius has stopped in his business to look at her, but she doubts he even recognizes her at his state. Remus nods at Mary and, after a small smile of greeting towards Lily, he and Peter proceeds on dragging Sirius back and away from his target.

"Hi," Lily responds to Mary.

"Alright?" asks Mary, but she doesn't let her answer anymore. "Do you want to talk?"

"Yeah, no," Lily waves it off, taking a sip of her drink, and wincing slightly at the burning. "I'm fine."

Mary nods, but her expression denotes anything but agreement. Her eyes search Lily's for a moment, before travelling over her shoulder and lingering on something—or _someone_. Even before Lily turns around by instinct to look, she already knows who it is.

James stands across the room, leaning on the bricked wall and a bottle in hand, his eyes on hers and his jaw hard—a Jeanne Marchbanks in front of him. She meets his gaze defiantly, tightening her hold on the glass, both of them unable to look away.

She missed him. She missed him so, so much, and she wants so badly to be the one in Jeanne's place, congratulating him and talking to him and playing with his tie and bantering and—

"You should go talk to him," Mary says.

"Yeah," she mumbles, still unconsciously staring. But then James starts to move—to step forward or to look away or to drag Jeanne away, she doesn't know—and Lily wills herself to snap out of it.

Everyone is laughing and yelling and singing, and she can't think of anything else but his eyes, and how hurt they'd been because of her...

Overwhelmed, she turns to Mary and forces out a weak smile. "I'll, um—I'll just— yeah. Have to dash. Be back in a bit."

And then she rushes out of there, just as someone somewhere, in an attempt to refill the gradually running out stash of firewhiskey, accidentally makes it rain champagne in one part of the room.

As she climbs out of the portrait hole, her drink sloshing in her glass and her heart on her sleeve shattering all over again, the faint sound of dripping water chases her on her departure and makes her remember.

* * *

Rain pattered heavily down the castle and blurred the Gryffindor tower windows. The watered down, fogged up glass provided no decent view of the Hogwarts grounds below—not that the Head Boy and the Head Girl minded; in fact, they particularly liked being cooped up in their dormitory on a rainy afternoon like this, on that rare in-between after class and before dinner, with the pillows cold and the other's body warm. The silence—broken only by the downpour and the occasional rustle of a page turning from Lily's book—was comfortable.

James lay in bed, Lily's Potions notes covering his face, his glasses slightly pushed up. He had tried perusing the lecture and instructional summaries about ten minutes ago, but found that the dull hum of the rain and Lily's scarlet hair in his peripheral vision were far too distracting. Beside him, Lily was sprawled on her stomach, her still socked feet in the air and crossed, idly flipping through a muggle novel propped on top of her Charms notes.

"Interesting..." Lily suddenly said.

James didn't move. "What is?" he asked, his voice muffled through the item over his face.

"This." Lily propped her head on her hand, shifting so she was facing her boyfriend. "The deplorable word."

He remained as is. "What's the deplorable word?"

"No one knows."

This time, James' hands reached up to lower the notes down to his chest. His brows furrowed a little as his eyes sought Lily's. "Okay...?"

She smiled at his evident puzzlement. "It's something that when uttered, destroys all living creatures in the world save for the one who says it."

In a heartbeat, "Sounds useful."

She swatted him with the book. "You're evil."

"Kidding," said James, half-laughing as he moved to evade her attack. "But I could _just_ mutter it during Potions NEWT's or something. The chances are high."

Lily just rolled her eyes. And then, "What if we had a deplorable word?"

"Sorry?"

She hesitated. "Like...what if we had something we shouldn't be allowed to say, and if we do, there'd be consequences?"

James stared at her for a moment, confused. He waited for her to elaborate, or to shake it off or something. Realizing she was waiting for him to respond, however, he set the notes aside, mimicking her position and rising up to level his face with hers. "D'you want a snog or what?"

"I—what?"

"Because you're clearly very bored."

"No, you prat, I'm serious!" Lily exclaimed. "It would be...erm, interesting."

"Try _pointless_," he rebutted, incredulous.

"Okay, maybe," she conceded, but James knew Lily was far from the end of it yet. "But—fine, alright, what about this: if for some reason, we have to...I don't know, part ways or something, and I have to break up with you..."

"Whoa," said James, feigning surprised hurt and leaning back a little. "Your eagerness to dispose of me stings quite a bit, Evans."

"I didn't say I was going to!"

He merely cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Not ever," Lily furthered.

James' eyebrows only rose even a fraction higher.

"Never ever _ever_."

"Mhmm," he muttered, theatrically jutting out his lower lip.

"You're ridiculous," Lily admonished, shaking her head, but leaning in to press a quick kiss on his lips all the same. James, like the five-year-old he was, smiled in contentment and instinctively reached for her hand.

"But we have to have a deplorable word. Just in case."

James rolled his eyes, groaning. "If you think I'm going to let you go soon, you're even more mental than I thought," he explained. "We don't _need_ one."

"See, that's why it's called _deplorable_, isn't it?"

He shot her a look, considering if it was worth the speech forming in his head. Her determined face screamed "well, what?", though, so he took a deep breath and went for it. "Listen, if for some impossibly unfathomable reason, you have to rid me of yourself—which, I declare by the overflowing intellect and ridiculous good looks the gods have bestowed upon me, would never fucking happen and this is all just purely hypothetical—then whatever it is you're going to say would be really, _truly_ deplorable. Deplorable in its most accurate definition. I'd never want to hear it, which means you, Evans, are never saying it." He paused. "It would be something like...something like Severus Snape. Now there's two deplorable words."

"Severus Snape," Lily repeated flatly.

"See? You just blew up the planet."

She was silent for a moment, possibly debating if she should tread on the ever sensitive Severus subject or if she should let it go (for now) and pursue her insistence on her current predicament. She went for the latter, as James would discover a second later, and scoffed. "On the contrary, if I'm going to lose everything after a word is said, then it better be something really fancy."

"So...a _fancy_ deplorable word?" James dragged out. "Yeah, sure, Evans."

"Yes," Lily insisted. "It should be deplorable only in the sense that it would destroy everything, you know? To hear something terrible before you lose everything, to hear something _actually_ deplorable before you die…that would be too cruel."

"But the world _is_ cruel."

"Not all the time."

"A homeless beggar starving somewhere in Scotland begs to differ."

"That's what beggars do, though, Potter. They _beg_."

He was quiet for a second. "You think you're so clever."

She smirked at him. "Still, it should be something happy. Something like…like rainbows. Or unicorns."

"Or James, for example," James put in. "Or Lily."

That made her smile. "Yes, something like that. Something like James and Lily."

"Or ginger," he went on, her eyes darting to the red locks that had earlier posed such a big distraction.

"Or glasses," she added, her free hand reaching up to fix the item in question.

"Or Quidditch."

"Or butterflies."

"Or yellow butterflies."

"That's two words, Potter."

"Semantics," he retorted. "Besides, you can't just have a fancy, common deplorable word and not accidentally say it and blow the universe up, so I think it has to be a unique set of words."

She stared at him, pleasantly surprised. "Good point."

"I do have my moments," he replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm, but his lips upturning in a faint smile.

"Yellow butterflies then," she mumbled. "That's nice."

"Yellow butterflies in a jar," James said vaguely. "Very subtly connotes to the tragedy of it all."

"Right." She was grinning now, scooting closer to him and drawing circles on the back of his hand. "A glass jar."

"Set them free, yeah?" He was barely aware of what he was saying, distracted as he was by her eyes and her nose and her _lips _getting closer and closer by the second.

"And then the world implodes," she whispered.

"Yellow butterflies in a glass jar," said James again, pausing for a second to test the feel of them on his tongue. It was crazy—_she_ was crazy—but somehow the words, maybe owing to the fact that they had just been branded, gave him a sense of foreboding.

"You just lost me and the rest of the world, Potter," Lily quipped, lying back down on the bed but tugging at his tie and taking him with her. The tragedy of the remark was lost on the smile playing on her lips.

He rolled his yes. "You're bonkers, Evans." He plopped down as well, shifting his body so he wouldn't crush her with his weight. "Absolutely damaged in the head." He leaned in—she was so, _so _beautiful, Lily was—his face barely an inch from hers. "But just in case," he muttered, a hand coming up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, "that's the last time I'm saying those string of words ever again."

And then he kissed her before she could answer.


	3. Three

**A/N: **For Morgan, best mate and all-around life coach, _as always_. And for Marra, Jeanne's namesake and keeper of the muse burning. Thanks so much to those who took time to review, you're all precious :')

* * *

The stoned wall feels uncomfortable against Lily's back, and the wind is as cool against her tear-stained face. The sighs and the occasional sniffs get lost in the breeze, infusing the dull thrum of music wafting from somewhere in the castle. Unfortunately, her thoughts remain persistent with plaguing her mind, and she's (almost) relieved when a voice behind her unknowingly interrupts the mental chaos—that is until a millisecond later when she realizes who owns it.

"What are you doing here?"

Lily looks up to find James standing over her, barely making him out because he's standing against the light and her vision's a little blurry. She adjusts her eyes to the darkness and notices that his tie is askew, his shirt is untucked, and his black hair is even more tussled than usual. He may be drunk by the way he slurred a little, but then again James has always possessed this ragged, all-over-the-place demeanor. (It's one of the many things she secretly loved about him.)

"You're on the wrong tower, Evans," he fills the silence. "Party's the other way."

A lump forms in her throat at the sight of him, and she's torn between the urge to bolt and the desire to stand up and look at him properly. Fix his tie or something. Take his hand, ruffle his hair, scream at him...do something, _anything_, that may cancel out all the wrong words said and all the wrong decisions made. Anything to maybe bring back things to the way they were.

Instead, she swallows all this down and averts her gaze. "I needed air, I suppose."

"You've barely been around five minutes in there."

She shrugs. "Yeah well."

A familiar silence passes over the two of them, and Lily waits for him to speak again or leave, but it would be a lie to say she doesn't want him so badly to take the space beside her. She opts not to voice this out, however, to avoid saying something stupid that may drive him away (again). She's oblivious to the fact that James, as she stares at her huddled figure, is meanwhile bitterly wondering how she can just sit there and...well, not do something.

Because _he_ certainly can't. He can't just stand there, he can't just leave—bloody hell, he couldn't even just let her go when he saw her leave the Gryffindor common room a few minutes ago. As it turns out, he automatically excused himself from Jeanne's company after Lily's departure, and demanded Sirius he hand him the map to find her. He almost punched his drunk best mate in frustration when he wouldn't give him what he needed, but he thought even if Sirius was so sodding sloshed he couldn't really _honestly_ remember where the damn map was, and even if Remus didn't have the sense to remember where Sirius liked to hide things, James wouldn't have given up then. (Of course not.) He would have gone out and searched the entire damn castle if he had to, a bit dizzy and disoriented as he was, because he couldn't let Lily Evans go. Not tonight, not when he swore to give up, not ever. He couldn't leave even if he would have wanted to, because her eyes haunted him and she and that Hunter git apparently called it quits and he just really, _really_ wanted to talk to her.

He can't bear to just stand there and let the dead of the night eat its way through them. He can't just not do something.

He wants her back. He's _certain_.

She does, too. _So much_.

But like many times before tonight, they have no idea how mutual the feeling is.

The silence is neither common nor awkward, however, because as frustrated and helpless as they both feel at the moment, Lily and James can't help but stall speech just so they can be in each other's company for a little while more—or at least for longer than how it usually takes for either of them to say something tactless that will make the entire stolen moment snap.

She wants to tell him she's sorry, but she doesn't know how. He wants to tell her he's sorry, but he's not sure if he can keep not hurting her after this, or sodding Merlin, if she'd even still believe him. (He thinks he'd rather be nothing in her life now than be the constant, unfailing source of her pain.)

In the end, it's Lily who breaks the silence. "How did you know I was here?"

He takes something out of his pocket and holds it up. "Map."

Lily's gaze lingers at him for as long as she dares, and then she realizes, "You came looking...?"

He hesitates. Softly, "Yes."

She doesn't respond to that. She doesn't know how to.

After a moment of silent deliberation, he shuffles over to where she is and sits down, his right shoulder brushing her left. Neither speaks for what feels like forever, and James leans his head back against the tower ledge and watches the night sky. The Astronomy Tower at night is usually the perfect hideout for those who need the occasional calm amidst a prying, boisterous castle, but despite the quiet and the otherwise pleasant atmosphere it provides now, James is reminded that silence doesn't always come with peace. But as he steals a glance at Lily and notes—for the millionth time in his existence—how beautiful the redhead witch looks in the moonlight, he figures it's the closest thing to calm he's felt in a while.

Well, almost.

She must have noticed him watching her. "You're on the wrong tower, too, y'know," she observes.

He shrugs.

"Congratulations on that match," she offers him.

"Thanks." Later, he would think that if he had thought it over he would have said something else. But he rarely thinks when he's around her, James does, and it's out before he can help it. "I heard you and Hunter broke up."

"I heard you and Jeanne didn't," she bites back. Her face remains impassive, but James catches a hint of hardness in her eyes. He must have just easily imagined it, though. It's hard to tell with the light. Or the lack thereof.

His gaze returns upwards, exhaling. "Yeah, of course we didn't."

Lily doesn't comment.

"Because there was nothing there to break in the first place."

At first she still doesn't answer, and he wonders if the silence is of surprise or apathy. But then, "Oh?"

"Yeah."

"Why are you here, James?"

He huffs. "You think I haven't asked myself that question?"

She stares at him incredulously and he stares determinedly, defiantly back. He expects a heated rebuttal from her, and it rather comes as a surprise when she moves to stand. For someone well on the way to intoxication, he catches on fast and gets to his feet as well.

"Listen, Evans—"

"James, I—"

They both stop, James' hand flying up to rub the back of his neck in apprehension. Lily bites her lower lip, like she's deciding something, and it comes to James that had she not talked the same time he did he wouldn't have honestly known what to say.

"Erm—" he starts, but is (thankfully) cut off.

"No, shut up for one second," she admonishes. "I have to get this out."

He nods, a bit nervous.

Lily looks thoughtful, her head slightly inclined to one side as she considers how to rightly phrase her sentiments. "Look, Terrence...Terrence was perfect."

James' jaw hardens. He turns away from Lily and leans against the ledge, his eyes sweeping over the vast, dark grounds below. "_Brilliant_."

"No, just—shut up one second..."

"No, _you_ do," James retorts. "Because I didn't come here for that."

Lily leans forward to look at him, frowning. "What did you come here for then?"

"Well, I—I don't _know_. Just..._you._" He glares at her half-heartedly. "But if you're only going to talk about how bloody perfect Wanker McCheekbones is and how sorry you are that he's gone off being some prissy little gentleman to some other bird then I'm sorry, Evans, but I'm not the person to talk to."

"Will you stop talking and actually let me finish?"

"_No_," says James heatedly. "Because I can't be that generous. I can't—I have no desire whatsoever to—"

"I love you."

He blinks. "What?"

She sighs, her face a mask of utter frustration. "He was perfect. He _is_. But I love _you_."

He can hear her. He certainly can see her in front of him, can't he? And he can hear her. He heard it. Twice. Incidentally, he also knows what those words mean, he knows it's her, it's _Lily_, but it's not...it's just not quite processing, and she's...she's— "_What?_"

"I shouldn't have started anything with him," Lily begins to explain, heeding none of his apparent befuddlement. "I feel horrible for it, for making him believe I could...I could move on, but you're not exactly that easy to..." She takes a deep breath, her mouth thinning into a determined line before speaking once more. "The thing is—you were right about Sev. And I'm _sorry_. I really shouldn't have—I should have gone up to you the moment I realized that, but Jeanne...and anyway it was too late, and I was just really scared..."

He frowns. _Jeanne?_ "Evans..."

But she holds up a hand to cover his mouth, undeterred. Taken by surprise, he stays still and lets her. "No, please, just—let me just say this, alright?" Lily insists. "You don't have to say anything back. You can do whatever you want after. Really. I just want to let you know, because it's killing me, and I _miss_ you, but I just couldn't…it was so bloody stupid..."

He easily grabs her hand and sets it down. "_Lily_—"

"When I was with you," the witch begins again, her voice bordering on frenzied. James, having a strange feeling that she's been keeping this all in for a while, stays silent this time. "When I was with you I felt like a kid again. I felt every damn thing, James, all the damn time. I was always happy and mad and frustrated and excited and everything I felt was magnified a hundred times, and when I realize how much I feel for you, it's...I've never ever thought I'm capable of it. Everything I did, everything I said, everything started to revolve around you, and I felt like I was becoming less and less myself and more and more like...like everyone else. All those girls, all the other ones before me. It terrified me. I couldn't face it, all of it, and I was scared of breaking in your hands and getting left behind and..." She looks down and starts twiddling with her fingers. "When Sev...when that ship sailed—_indefinitely_—I should have owned up to it and said sorry, I know, but I couldn't. I _didn't_. I thought I didn't want to feel like that again, like _this_ again, and that—" she lets out a hollow laugh and shakes her head, "—that was silly. Because it's rather the best feeling in the world..." James grapples at something to say, but he really just wants to kiss her at this point. "But then Terrence was there," Lily however carries on, "and he was perfect—he was _supposed_ to be perfect—so I made the excuse of wanting to find myself again and gave him a chance."

"Did you then?" James quickly tries to cut in, half-curious, half-dreading. "Find yourself? With him?"

Lily smiles weakly ahead, her eyes on the horizon afar. "That's the thing about that excuse. It's just that—an excuse. A pretentious one. I realized I'd found myself long before that. Because who I am, who I really am…" She swallows and drags her eyes up to him, her eyes welling up. "I belong with you. I wasn't trying to be myself again—I was running away from who I was. Because the truth is that I was just really scared of what—of _how much_—you made me feel. But I mean, you bring out the worst in me, maybe, but that's just what I'm made of, you know? That's just really me. And I should accept it the way you seem to overlook it, because despite it all you never make me feel bad about myself. You bring out the worst in me, Potter, but at the end of the day...it's you who bring out the best, too. It's you who make me better."

James merely stares at her, dumbfounded.

"Running away from you meant running away from me," she proceeds. "Because that's just really what I did—I ran away. Which is why…Terrence was great and charming and kind and he made sense, he really did, but I wasn't there with him. I was never there with him. I've always been with you."

Still speechless but a lot less thoroughly flabbergasted now, he tries to come up with a coherent thought and an appropriate answer. The shift in his mood is too fast and too vastly different to keep up with—actually, no, is this even real? He has been drinking after all…and all of that makes it a tad difficult me for the light, bubbling feeling settling on the pit of his stomach to register as happiness. Unbelievable, overwhelming, bloody fucking Lily-Evans-and-no-one-_else_-induced _happiness_. He opens his mouth to speak—but is interrupted by her laugh.

"It's absurd, really, because you were an idiot most of the time," she says. "You were endlessly infuriating, you were mad and loud and cocky and—and you could make me cry and laugh and furious all in five minutes...you drove me crazy eleven sodding times out of ten! You were just absolutely, _beyond_ cure insane, James Potter, did you know that?" She pauses to hastily wipe a tear, and James smiles fondly down at her. "You didn't make sense. Not at all. But I was in love with you. I was in love with all of you. And it was incredibly stupid of me to not realize all that sooner."

He swallows, noticing the stark use of past tense. "Do you still...?"

But he might as well not have spoken, because she abruptly turns away from him, as if the spell is broken. "I'm sorry," she mutters, "I just...yeah. Sorry. I should go...or _you_ should. I was here first! Jeanne must be—"

"Lily," he says, he _finally_ says, and it sounds like a command, like an answer to a prayer, like the beginning of a fairytale. But he wastes not one more second and gives her no time to bloody start rambling again (although he loved the way tonight turned out, he loved it quite a bit), and he shoves her against the tower ledge and closes in, his toned arms on either side of her and the night breeze against his cheeks. And _Godric_, how he missed being so close to her like this, nothing but her green eyes and that scarlet fringe, her lips a word away and her breath easily melding with his.

"There's never been anyone else," he tells her, dead serious. "Not ever."

And then he captures her lips because she's going to talk again, _Merlin_, and he's just been dying to kiss her all night. (All his life.)

She doesn't automatically respond, but when she does, her hands weave themselves around his neck and she pulls him closer. He thinks she tastes like firewhiskey and a million Quidditch victories and _forever_, and it feels like everything and nothing all at once.

It might just have been minutes, but it would have lasted a decade for all James cared. He doesn't need to say anything. He _loves _her, no one else, and his lips and his hands are both proof and witness, and when he feels her smile through the kiss he knows that she _gets it_.

When he breaks away, there's that look in her eye that beats whatever else anything has to offer, because he knows she's his again.

"You reek," Lily informs him, crying and laughing and lightly whacking him on the chest.

"Missed you too," replies James, his hands cradling her face, one thumb gently swiping a tear.

Her own comes up between them to fix his tie. "You're such a slob, James Potter."

"And yet you're in love with me."

She purses her lips and looks up at him, narrowing her eyes and huffing in disbelief.

He can't help the grin spreading on his face. And then he sobers up and assumes a rather stern countenance. "Promise me though," he says, "no more deplorable words rubbish, yeah?"

Lily smiles sheepishly. "Right." She chews on the inside of her cheek and her expression softens. "I'm really sorry..."

"Me too. But none of that now..."

"Remus was right, I never would have realized..."

"Some other time, Evans..."

"I just feel like I should—"

He shakes his head and places a finger on her lips. "_Nope_. Shut up."

She sighs theatrically and then peers up at him from under her lashes. "Make me—I'm all yours."

"Damn right." And so James, with that devious smirk of his own and a boyish chuckle (and a silent promise to never let her go _ever_ again), duly obliges.

_F__in_


End file.
